The desire to reduce the cost and increase the ease and speed of refuse collection, in conjunction with improvements in automation techniques, has resulted in substantial changes in the collection of residential and commercial refuse. As the technology of carts and lift mechanisms developed, several different styles of carts and lift mechanisms have emerged. However, despite these differences, most modern refuse collection systems include carts having wheels, which allow them to be rolled to the street curb and a refuse vehicle or truck having a cart engaging gripper or faceplate, which is connected to a lift mechanism for lifting the refuse container or cart from a lowered receiving position to a raised dumping position at which the contents of the container fall into the refuse collection hopper of the truck.
Rather than manually lifting a refuse cart into the truck to be emptied, modern refuse collection systems, generally referred to a semi-automated, require the operator to orient the refuse cart so as to be square with the faceplate and then tip the cart so that it engages an engaging member on the faceplate. The operator then activates the lift mechanism to lift and dump the contents of the cart and, once emptied, return the cart to the ground where the operator removes the cart from the faceplate. Examples of such a refuse collection system may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,738,516 to Wells and 4,479,751 to Wyman et al.
More recently, in a continuing attempt to increase the speed and efficiency of refuse collection, fully automated collection systems have begun to appear. An example of such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,889,462 to Naab et al. where the operator of the refuse truck moves the faceplate into contact with the refuse cart. If the cart is not square to the faceplate, the contact with the cart causes the faceplate to pivot or deflect from its biased neutral position to allow the cart to thereby be engaged by the engaging elements of the faceplate. Once the cart has been engaged, a setting and blocking cylinder is activated to move the cart and the faceplate back to the neutral position. This approach to engaging a refuse cart is limited by its inability to actively pivot the faceplate, which prevents the cart from being returned to the roadside in its original position.
A further limitation of some of the known collection systems is the fact that they have difficulty engaging containers which are placed immediately next to each other, or next to fixed object such as a mailbox. These collection systems are also unable to engage containers which are severely misoriented or rotated out of alignment with the faceplate. Thus, the operator of the truck is often required to leave the cab so as to align the containers and thereby permit them to be engaged by the faceplate of the truck.
In order to permit segregation and collection of different types of recyclable waste or collect recyclable waste separately from other types of refuse, it has recently been proposed to insert a divider panel into the collection hopper of the refuse truck to divide the collection hopper into two chambers. Such a division allows one chamber to receive recyclable materials and the other chamber receive nonrecyclable materials. Alternatively, it is possible to have each of the two chambers receive a different type of recyclable material. The use of this system requires that the containers be accurately located on one or the other side of the divider panel when in the raised dumping position, so that the contents fall into the proper chamber, depending upon the nature of the contents of the container.
Another refinement of the above system includes the dividing of the refuse container itself into left and right side compartments, which are adapted to receive wastes which have been segregated by the homeowner or other user. To utilize these divided containers, it is necessary to lift and tilt each container so that the divider wall of the container is accurately aligned above the divider panel in the truck, so that the contents of the compartmentalized container fall into the proper chamber in the truck and so as to avoid cross-contamination. Such accurate positioning of the carts is not always possible with several of the presently known lift mechanisms.
Cost and efficiency are essential components of all future refuse collection systems. However, existing semi-automated collection systems still require the operator to leave the truck cab to both place the cart onto the faceplate and remove it once it has been dumped. As a result, the total time it takes to complete a collection route is not substantially reduced. The desire to utilize existing fully automated collection systems is limited by the inability of several of the known approaches to work in confined areas, to engage a cart which is not square to the faceplate or to replace the cart, once emptied, in its original position. Furthermore, some of the existing fully automated collection systems are not well suited for use with a divided cart and a divided collection hopper.